cave bearUrsus spelaeusextinct species either of two extinct bear species, Ursus spelaeus and U. deningeri, notable for its habit of inhabiting caves, where its remains are frequently preserved; in European cave deposits, the remains of more than 100,000 cave bears have been found. The cave bear . It is best known from late Pleistocene cave deposits (the Pleistocene Epoch lasted from 2.6 million to 11,700 years ago), although it can be traced back to Late Pliocene times (the Pliocene Epoch ended spanned 5.3 million to about 2.6 million years agoand was followed by the Pleistocene). Remains have been found ). In European cave deposits the remains of more than 100,000 cave bears have been found.

Cave bear remains have been found in England, Belgium, Germany, Russia, Spain, Italy, and Greece, and

it

the animal may have reached North Africa. Several local varieties, or races, have been described; dwarf races are known from some regions. Stone Age peoples sometimes hunted the cave bear, but evidence of

this

that hunting is very sporadic; it is highly unlikely that hunting by

man

human beings caused its extinction. It appears likely that most cave bears died in the severe glacial winters during

hibernation

dormancy; the remains include a large proportion of very young or very old bears and many specimens showing unmistakable signs of illness or disease. Extinction of the cave bear seems to have been a gradual process that was complete

at the close of the last glacial episode. The cave bear was probably as large as the Kodiak bears of Alaska, the largest bears of today

between 28,000 and 27,000 years ago.

The cave bear’s weight ranged from 400 to 1,000 kg (about 880 to 2,200 pounds), the largest cave bears being comparable in size to the Kodiak bears (U. arctos middendorffi) of Alaska and the polar bears (U. maritimus) of the Arctic. The head was very large, and the jaws bore distinctive teeth

. It has been inferred

, which suggests that the animal was largely vegetarian.

In 2013 a mitochondrial DNA sequence of a cave bear was reconstructed by a group of scientists from a bone fragment discovered at Atapuerca’s Sima de los Huesos (“Pit of the Bones”) cave in Spain. The fragment was dated to more than 300,000 years ago, which made the genome among the oldest ever reconstructed outside of a permafrost environment.